Shattered Crystal
by mistressofmischeif
Summary: I scooped up a handful of the glittering crystal and spread it on the table, transfixed. prequel to Ch. 8 of Haruno Sakura: A Life Story.


**This is a one shot prequel type thing to chapter eight of Haruno Sakura: A Life Story.**

**I'd be best if you read up until there though this can **_**almost**_** be a story in itself.**

Shattered Crystal

_**One Week**_

I stared vaguely at the one-way glass before me. For a second I pretended to see the people I knew were standing behind it, watching, waiting for me to do something. I imagined faces, adding body type, hair color, and various features that would make the imagined people seem real.

The people behind the glass probably thought I was just staring, but with the way my eyes were moving, they may have assumed that I was just weird. Becoming bored with the game of faces my thirteen year old self turned to my reflection.

A battered girl in plain clothes stared back. Wispy pink hair, dirty, disheveled, and shades paler then the vibrant color it had once been. Skin pale and somewhat taut giving off an undernourished appearance. Finally, I looked to my eyes. Dull emerald, surrounded by dark bruise like rings, bespeaking nights of lost sleep.

They eyes seemed to be speaking with me. Haunted, dark, hopeless.

_You're Fault._

They screamed. The reflection wavered for the barest millisecond known to man. A gunshot and rain were supplied to my mind. After, the image of my face splattered with my closest friends blood. The reflections eyes twitched into a small wince at the memory. Despite being in a sound proof room I swore I could hear the doctor's pen scratching.

One week. That's how long I had been there. Mother had brought me in, she didn't know what else to do. So for the past week I sat there staring into the one-way mirror, doing nothing. Avoiding eye contact with myself. I just couldn't do it, the guilt was over whelming.

Strangling me, making every day harder to breathe. Everyday I could feel it slowly chipping away the mask of stone I had shaped myself into. Everyday was pure agony. If only to keep those terrible feelings away. I couldn't risk letting them loose, it would probably kill me. I don't open my mouth out of fear that my mental screaming will manifest and never stop.

They watch me day and night. From when I wake up, eat breakfast, and come to this room. Everything I do is carefully monitored, except for showers. I hate being watched, it makes me paranoid, but they don't know this. I just hope they stop so I can sleep peacefully.

When I grow bored the doctor finally comes in. He wears a bandanna and sunglasses. I saw him trying to flirt with some nurses yesterday. He failed horribly. Most women don't find it flattering if you stare at their chest. It's a wonder he's still alive. The fact that he's playing psychologist to a technical child makes me wary around him, not that the oblivious man would notice. That makes another wonder as to how he still has his job.

He leads me to the cafeteria, I'm not aloud alone incase I'm suicidal. They don't know I know this. The room has two others in it. I don't know their names.

_**One Month**_

Nothing has changed. I still don't talk to them. They are starting to believe I was autistic(1). They also don't know I know this. I had over heard them while talking. The doctor, Ebisu, said I probably would have shown signs earlier if I was. The doctors have taken to talking about me as if I'm not there.

They began discussing if I could be mentally retarded from brain damage. They didn't know what had happened to me for the past year so they said it was probable. Despite the technical terms I had still understood them, and I don't like people insulting me. So I pointed out that I was still there.

I didn't say anything, my fear of that never ending scream wouldn't let me. I kicked the table. Normally it wouldn't have been there, but one of the female nurses had thought the cheap crystal vase filled with flowers would cheer the room up. The vase fell to the ground, though I hadn't hit the table that hard, shattering into tiny diamond-like pieces.

The doctors started, but I paid them no mind. The tiny pieces of shimmering crystal captivated me, and I couldn't help but stare. Slowly and carefully I lowered my hands to the beautiful mess. I could feel the awe on my normally blank face. I ignored the continued stares of the doctors.

I scooped up a handful of the glittering crystal and spread it on the table, transfixed.

It was a perfect semblance to before the alterations that my life had taken, but the beauty had become tarnished. Unlike the crystal, that became more radiant when it broke. My life was not more beautiful and it never would be because of her death. I picked it up again. My hands clenched around the broken pieces. I could feel them digging into the palms of my hands.

Opening them again I stared. There was a light mix of blood, my hands hand been clenched so tight. I was more spellbound then before. I lay out the pieces again, brushing off what stuck to the small cuts in my hands. One of the doctors rushed towards me to clean and bandage my hands. But I continued to stare at the shattered crystal mixed with a light mist of my blood.

It was the perfect semblance. Before and after. The crystal for the happiness before and the blood symbolizing the guilt of after.

_**Three Months**_

My mom tried to get me out on my birthday. The doctors wouldn't let her. They told her about the crystal incident and the tests they wanted to do. She didn't want to agree but did thinking the doctors would get progress. I didn't want to celebrate my birthday anyways. What do people find so great about getting older?

I couldn't bring myself to care even if I tried. Because I was able to live, grow old, and supposedly be happy. Some wouldn't get that chance because of me. So I denied it to myself as well. Even if you don't turn thirteen every day

_**Five Months**_

The doctors didn't trust me after that incident four months ago. They kept me away from anything that could possibly hurt me, worrying for my life. Not that I wanted to hurt myself. _She_ had always said, 'Only cowards can't bring themselves to face the next day, even if they know that it will kill them.'

I didn't want to kill myself, not really. I wasn't a coward, I was just really guilty feeling. The feeling in my heart canceled the logic in my brain. My heart screamed, 'It was your fault _she_ died.' But my brain said, 'The was nothing you could do. Don't blame yourself.' People were always saying to follow your heart, so I was.

The doctors were expectant after the crystal incident. They had finally gotten a reaction out of me. Their expectations were not met. The crystal incident seemingly set my mind firmly in place. It said to me that my heart was right. The doctors still did their testing, saying there were still thousands of possibilities for my silence. They did everything they could think of to get a reaction, from electroconvulsive therapy(2) to bringing the bloody crystal in.

They got nothing.

I was getting even less sleep. I just couldn't bring myself to. I tried to stop them from watching my sleep by disconnecting the camera, it didn't work. I tried sleeping on the floor, under the bed, anywhere outside the cameras view. I was either moved back to my bed, or couldn't sleep anyway because of the knowing feeling that the camera was still there.

Any sleep I did have never lasted long. Some was because of the paranoia of being watched. But most of it came from my guilty nightmares. Every time I fell asleep I relived that day.

_**Seven Months**_

They began monitoring my sleep. They say it's because of how little I get. But I know better. They want to know why I toss and turn so much. With my luck I'll end up strangling myself in my sleep, if I ever get any.

My eyes stay open wide all night. The room is devoid of everything. There are no windows, no color, no cameras. Because they watch me personally now, though that one-way mirror that is supposed to make you feel like you're alone.

Doctors are idiots. All night, in the dark room I stare into that mirror. They've made matters worse. I know I'm being watched now. If the cameras were there it would be unknown if someone was watching. But now I can be positive. No matter how tired I am I can't sleep when someone watches me.

Exhausted the next day I clock out as soon as I was positive I was at least alone. I woke up in my hospital bed, curled up in a nest of blankets. Someone had moved me. But I didn't really care, as long as I wasn't being watched.

They set me up for the same thing the next night, and they got the same results. By the third night I had enough and just walked out of the room. They tried to stop me but I had a year of street fights, an awesome teacher, and a strange addiction to kick boxing. They didn't try to monitor my sleep again. They didn't even mention it. It would seem they have finally learned something. But it didn't get the cameras out of my room.

_**Ten Months**_

Mother's getting worried at their lack of progress. She's been in my room as often as possible trying to get some sort of reaction. She looks older, and I know it's my fault. It makes me feel bad. I try to comfort her, but I can seem to get the words out. A combination of not knowing what to say and ten months of no talking. I've become used to the quite and I'm not willing to break it.

The doctors have taken to trying to scare me into talking despite the risk on my vocal cords(3). It doesn't work. Most of the doctors drag their feet. Or they go on tip toes. In a quiet room it's easy to hear the light taps of their shoes on the linoleum.

Ebisu came in one day. He threatened me with a psycho home, my words not his. He said it'd be a cold place where no one really cared. I imagined Siberia it was cold there. His words had no effect. Mainly because you're supposed to let a threat sink in before you bribe your victim with a trip outside.

His bribe didn't work because I didn't want to go outside. I would have to face the cold truth there, and I didn't want to. It would be easier to just stay in here with the drugged up crazies in their world of pretend.

_**Twelve Months**_

My mom came to my supposed rescue. She was about to go to New York as usual and she wanted me to come with, For 'a bit of normalcy,' as she put it. So I was officially out of the mental ward, and on my way to New York. So the doctors marked me down as depressed, gave me medication, and sent me home.

I was happy to be home, but I was also worried. It was dangerous to be home, in such a familiar place. Because familiarity brought nostalgia, which brought back bad memories. I was home for a week when we finally left. I was wearing the jacket she had given me, the warm dark grey coloring brought back a casual comfort to me. It was the only thing I allowed myself.

Kin and Tayuya were there the first day, it was the tradition both their mothers followed vapidly. I ignored their insults. Forgot them the moment they were said. They left me alone after about an hour.

All the mothers and daughters went out to lunch in a group. My clothes stood out amongst the fashion obsessed around me. My mother ended up ordering for me in the restaurant since I couldn't and wouldn't talk. She looked stressed at the weird looks the other mothers and daughters were giving her. I didn't like causing her so many problems.

I turned to her and smiled, it wasn't more then a twitch of my lips, seeing as I wasn't used to doing such things after so long. Her eyes got teary as she smiled back. I felt her hand curl around mine under the table.

_**Time After**_

I decided after Christmas that I would try to keep my mother happy. If acting normal made her happy then that's what I would do. At first I was just more responsive since I couldn't talk. She was noticeably happier even if I wasn't. Slowly I began to talk again, and I spent every second dreading the never ending scream I could feel building slowly from its corner in the back of my mind. It was so bad that I sometimes didn't talk for days.

I went to school again. Here my metal scream was louder. I had taken a test to keep me in my normal grade. The teachers had told me themselves my results had been better then expected. It wasn't an insult, just an assumption they had made. Everyone knew I had lived on the streets for a year. They made wild assumptions about me that I really didn't care about.

Some began to pick fights with me. I fought back and almost always won. I had learned from experience while they just swung fists. I found that getting in some sort of trouble seemed to lessen the screams power over me. So I began causing trouble, getting in fights was my main source. When ever my mother got worried I cut down on the chaos. Because I wanted her to be happy.

I spent some time with my old gang. Tenten wasn't around, she had left for a job or something. I couldn't stand to be around them for to long, and they seemed to understand this. Even more so when I had to drop them for my mother's sake. But I offered them a place to crash if they ever needed it. Though they knew I could only really deal with one of them with my smallish house.

In September when school started again mom took me back to Ebisu. She said something was different about me.

I stayed for two weeks this time. Some days I walked around. Playing the piano, _Jaws_ for the weird shark man, and Pinocchio's _I've Got No Strings_ for the puppet man. One good days I would walk down the halls saying 'bang' whenever a certain blonde passed by, though never with in hearing range of the staff, they still believed I was silent. Other days I would do nothing. I just couldn't bring myself to.

Ebisu had an Archimedes Eureka(4) moment. He said I was 'mD'(5) bipolar(6). He explained the technical terms to my mom, I wasn't paying attention. It was my last day there, and as I had been sitting in his office something had caught my eye. In the corner of the room sat a bowl. I hadn't noticed it in my previous two weeks.

Ignoring the stares of my mom and Ebisu I got up to get a closer look. In the bowl sat tiny diamond like pieces of broken crystal. Something told me that they were the same ones from the vase I had broken. I dipped my hands into the bowl and took out some of the crystal. I smiled sadly, thinking how I would never really be happy again.

But I would pretend for my mother and others. I was often told that I was good at making others happy, so that's what I would do. I would make others happy for me and keep none for myself, if the feeling ever came back.

I put the crystal back in its bowl, brushing of the strays that cling to my sweaty palms. Yes, that's what I would do. I looked back at the crystal, sitting there, so beautiful. Such a beautiful thing was my life. That entrancing glittering thing that could never be put back together.

That beautiful shattered crystal.

**0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0**

**I've been bitten by the research bug and I want to be right on the mental disorders and other things I had to look up or just wanted to share.**

**(1) autism noun- a mental condition characterized by great difficulty in communicating with others and in using language and abstract concepts.(dictionary)**

**(2) electroconvulsive therapy- relating to or denoting the treatment of mental illness by applying electric shocks to the brain.(dictionary)**

**(3) Not talking for a long time weakens the vocal cords and any sudden sounds after long periods of time can cause damage, sometimes permanent(I'm thinking it's along the period of more than one year) I read this in a book, it makes sense but I'm not sure on the actual time period.**

**(4) Archimedes was said to have said Eureka when he got into his bathtub and noticed the water rose.(random fact I know and just had to add for some reason)**

**(5)These are different points on the bipolar spectrum: **

**'M' severe mania**

**'D' severe depression (unipolar depression)**

**'m' less severe mania (hypo mania)**

**'d' less severe depression**

**'mD' represents a case with hypo mania and major depression.(Wikipedia)**

**(6) Bipolar I disorder is a mood disorder that is characterized by at least one manic or mixed episode. There may be episodes of hypomania or major depression as well. It is a sub-diagnosis of bipolar disorder, and conforms to the classic concept of manic-depressive illness.(Wikipedia)**

**I'm guessing on how that would be said it could be:**

'**mD' bipolar**

**Or some other way. The 'mD' might not even be said at all but I wanted to be specific.**

**(Wow just barely eleven pages)**


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